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Monday, October 18, 2010

The Squishy Deathknight

I want to try tanking. I've mentioned this before, but it's been a couple weeks now so I thought it might warrant repeating. I have a damage dealer and a healer and now I would like to have a tank.

So I dusted off my Death Knight. And I know - I know - that DK tanks can be a total nightmare for a healer. I remember that from leveling Aioka; I had some truly terrible pug DK tanks.

Regardless, my DK is a level 63 and my next highest crunchy character is a level 36 and I'm lazy. More than that, I've been reserving the level 36 (my paladin) to level with my friend's rogue.

When I started with Feight (oh way back when) I started spec'ing her as blood. I remember doing some of the quests in Silithus and having a blast with the Dancing Rune Weapon. And the creepy little blood worms were actually a plus too. I was always amused when they popped up.

But, I decided that if Feight was going to be a tank prior to the next big patch she needed to be Frost. And I know each DK tree can "technically" be a tank - Takk, especially, is a really good Blood tank - but Frost is recommended for a leveling tank.

So I went out and I did it. I found a nice leveling build and guide and spent the money to respec and to get the glyphs that were deemed necessary.

And then... rather than jump into the random dungeon finder, I went back out to solo quest. Damn, I'm a wuss.

Let me just tell you, solo questing as a Frost tank sucks. I died all the time. And, while it was probably a good opportunity to learn how to manage my tanking cooldowns, I got tired of it very quickly.

I complained a little about it in guild. I mean, really now, I'm a Death Knight. I was one of the Lich King's chosen. I'm invincible. ... Right?

Takk did have some sage advice: "Well, at some point you have to stop expecting to solo group quests."

Huh? But I'm a Death Knight.

Regardless, a proper crunchy should have an offspec, right? I mailed Feight some gold for a dual spec, but rather than go back to my blood dps spec I picked up unholy. Unholy uses diseases (i.e. DoTs) and a pet (the permanent ghoul) to lay waste to enemies. Look! I'm a warlock in plate!

So, I've done some more dungeons since then. As Unholy. (Still a wuss.) I've tried to get all the nooby DK things out of my system like using Death Grip on mobs. "I r not the tank. I do not get to grip things unless the tank asks me to." Repeat as necessary.

Aaaaand.... entering a dungeon with my ghoul on aggressive. Or, using Death Coil on a completely untapped pack because I had the Runic Power and wasn't paying enough attention to which group we were attacking. Lord, I felt like a proper Deathtard.

My biggest problem is probably that, because I'm crunchy I have an automatic "protect the squishies" complex. If something is attacking the healer, I MUST get its attention so that the healer will not take a dirt nap. To be fair, this is not completely unlike my reaction when on Mara. Better the warlock die than the healer. Except. Don't tell any other warlock I said that. Ever.

But now, its even worse. When the tank takes a dirt nap, I start thinking: I wear plate! I can tank the rest of this group down! Which has yet to succeed. I did remember to switch on Frost Presence though. ... Or maybe that was the problem.

Takk was super awesome in giving me advice about rotations and stuff. I was like "Halp, I have only two AoEs, my AoE dps will be teh SUCK." And Takk was all like "Lawl, my unholy AoE dps is the shiznit, here is how to do it gud." And I was all like "That sounds super complicated, how will I ever succeeeeeed?"

Or... you know... something like that.

Of course, here we are one week later and patch 4.0.1 has dropped and this is all completely beside the point. But its about the journey, amirite?

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About Me

I am a laid-back person who enjoys video games and spending time with friends. I like to create things; be it new characters, blogs or websites, or stories. I am an instructor of computer science. This allows me to bang my head against interesting problems on a daily basis and creates a continual need for caffeine and WoW.